The /newstuff Chronicles #340

Welcome to an Easter Sunday edition of The /newstuff Chronicles. However, that doesn't mean it's any different than if it were posted any other day. A reminder to all reviewers: please name your screenshots correctly. The reviewing page even tells you what to call them! How hard can it be? On with it, now.

• ATG VS Humans - Terry
  Skulltag - Team LMS - 5115952 bytes -
  Reviewed by: JacKThERiPPeR
  We all know Terry. That guy that makes shocking wads for no purpose. But, we all know his own problem: he needs rehab. Why? Because he's asking for it. Two weeks (?) may have passed in the making of this review, because the wad is so horrible that describes itself as a fight between humans and disabled people, based off Ghouls versus Humans.
  
  Now, I know what you're thinking, "KICK HIS ASS REAL GOOD! >:D". No. I won't mess with Terry, but I'll give an advice to not to end like him.
  
  The wad is intended for LMS for Skulltag, as GvH. But it has different classes. A rebel, like the one from Strife, with a rifle and the knifed fists; a cyborg based off on the Inquisitor from Strife, with the ability to fly onward and with a chaingun and a rocket launcher; a marine; and this is where things get awkward: Poppy, Romero Supreme, and Andrew.
  
  Poppy: A small doll made out of MS Paint from a photo, that shoots other dolls like him and makes a horrible "LOL" sound. He has the size of the Creeper on GvH, just for the eyesight height. This is an example of why not to use MS Paint or insult disabled people when making a wad, specially someone that no one knows except the author.
  
  Romero Supreme: It's Romero's Head, and makes plenty of BFG balls, but with more awful sounds like "PEW PEW BZZZZZT". Self explanatory.
  
  Andrew: Shoots railguns, and his sprites consists on the face of some ugly guy, also maybe disabled. Another example of why not to mess with Down Syndrome children.
  
  As the rest of the wad, something made me curious: when opening the wad in SLumpED, you see a lot of DECORATE, SNDINFO and other lumps with the same content and derivatives. Beware, not for the faint of heart or calling the FBI: //man i wanna fuck that nice ass of yours right off! get him santa of calooby!
  
  There's also lumps with the name of NICEASS.
  
  Well, my conclusion about this is, don't be a jerk, and don't do drugs when making a wad based off on another that was obviously a multiplayer hit. That'll sum up everything. Stay cool.
  
  
• Freame 2 - Evil Space Tomato
  ZDoom - Solo Play - 1340649 bytes -
  Reviewed by: udderdude
  This is a single map for Heretic using ZDoom. It's an enormous castle map, with a custom boss at the end. My clear time was around 2 hours, if it gives you any idea. It's absolutely HUGE. You'll definitely want to take a break halfway through. The map's areas are varied in theme, and there's never a moment where you think you've seen everything. It just keeps getting more and more epic. ZDoom scripting and effects are used throughout, and they're all used very well. There are some new monsters as well, and they're well done. There's also some new weapons, but I won't spoil anything here.
  
  The map's difficulty, on the other hand, is a bit of a letdown. Most of the time you'll be overflowing with ammo, leaving piles of ammo on the floor, and by the end I had an inventory overflowing with great items I never even needed to use. There were only a few spots that were somewhat challenging, and you could easily get past them if you used the multiple invulnerability rings given to you. Still, you can tell a lot of effort was put into it. If you're a fan of huge, epic castle maps, this map will satisfy you several times over. Recommended!
  
  
• The UAC Rebellion - Adam "Doomkid" Post
  Unspecified - Solo Play - 2289602 bytes -
  Reviewed by: Wills
  A set of about ten or so maps that uses various types of Marines as the primary enemies, along with some edited Barons of Hell, Cacos, and "Virtualdemons". Fighting mostly Marines works pretty well, up to the point where all the different kinds (shotgun, pistol, etc.) kind of melt together and you just shoot whatever moves. The weapons are satisfying to fire even if the graphics have been used pretty much everywhere before (and the sound for the new Super Shotgun is from Goldeneye, for a pistol... kinda bugged me). The maps are moderately detailed; the first few try to create a real-looking place (subway tunnel, marine headquarters) but gradually get more abstract and hellish. The layouts are not overly complicated and are sometimes frustrating but most of the time the maps play quite well. Story is your usual "demons portals conspiracy bla bla bla" but frankly that's immaterial considering the rest of the mod is perfectly fine and entertaining. Try it out, you'll probably like it.
  
  
• JtRLimbo 2: The Ruins Remaining - Juan "JacKThERiPPeR" Manuel Arroyo Alcon
  ZDoom - Solo Play - 12568854 bytes -
  Reviewed by: TheeXile
  Initial cynical thoughts: "poor man's Deus Vult", "overused, recycled ZDoom monsters", "suffers from wacky difficulty inconsistencies", "story?", "unwarranted self-importance". However, it's really not a bad map, despite what I think.
  
  It is a bit inconsistent gameplay-wise, with several slaughter-esque portions mixed with the usual room-by-room cleanup, topped off with some ludicrous boss fights. Ammo and health supplies are contained in abundance in the main rooms, which prompted the infrequent back-tracking trip but overall kept a comfortable surplus. Game time will last you maybe around an hour depending upon how efficient you are (lol cheats).
  
  Architecturally it's decent enough, with a few obvious influences from outside sources (especially the library room). Some neat sprite and ZDoom effects can be found here and there, but nothing truly spectacular, and even a wee sparse at times. At least I'm saved from getting to complain about ludicrously large/claustrophobic areas this time, though.
  
  If there's one thing to complain about it would have to be how each of the "boss" monsters assrapes the difficulty consistency of the map. They were both beatable, though, but somewhat annoying. The first boss requires you to play a dumb hide and seek game to avoid its spammerific ricocheting rock projectiles. At least the author was kind enough to display a health meter to tell me how long I had to put up with that. The second boss was a bit more interesting in appearance and function, but alas, suffered from its own variation of spamitis with the occasional mass volley of fucking random bouncing ice balls that kill you in one god damned hit! Never mind its normal attack of bouncing blue BFG balls (also one-hit kills at normal health), but those were more reasonable with proper care taken.
  
  Also I should mention that there's supposedly a story behind this having to do with evil admins, Internet trolls, and failed Doom sites (complete with voiced epilogue), but it never stuck in my mind well enough for me to remember it, so I guess it wasn't very important.
  
  So yeah. It suffers from some common ZDoom excesses and has some wild difficulty consistency issues, but otherwise it's not bad.
  
  
• a lost 2005 oddity - Walter "daimon" Confalonieri
  Boom Compatible - Deathmatch - 173455 bytes
  Reviewed by: Chrispaks
  A solid deathmatch map. It's got some funny pictures in it (like Sylvester having eaten Tweety bird, and anti-4chan propaganda). Overall, it's a solid deathmatch map, but when you figure out how to get the BFG you're unstoppable. It's too easy to get the best weapon.
  
  The background is great, feels like an actual Counterstrike map at times. Gameplay is a little lacking due to weapon placement.
  
  
• Alando Guns X - Alando1 (Alan)
  ZDoom Compatible - Solo Play - 20812069 bytes
  Reviewed by: Chrispaks
  It's always nice to see this
  -----------------------------------
  FATAL ERROR:
  Effective sprite height of skin Base too big! Downsizing.
  
  Execution could not continue.
  
  The base skin sprite of player class TankPlayer exceeds the limits!
  -----------------------------------
  
  Okay so I can't run it on Skulltag... lets try gzDoom. It says it works on it, so it should. Yep no overflow. Why would it work on one and not the other? Aren't they both based off of ZDoom?
  
  Anyways, I feel bad bashing this--the guy lost his dad and dedicated this to him. This is just a bunch of ripped skins compiled into one wad, and they're pretty unplayable. The only fun part is what replaces the BFG--it's like a nuclear missile and makes the BFG look like a joke. Other than that, it's really hard to play with because of reloading/how the weapons are. They don't mix with Doom too well. The only fun part I had was, as I said, going nuts with whatever gun replaced the BFG. It even took out the boss brain in one shot. Talk about nice power B-)!
  
  Another rant I have with this is the size. The wad itself is 47 megabytes. Basically, if you have a telephone line (for whatever reason...) you're not getting this. These must all be .bmp files because I've seen weapon mods with just as many features but way less space. Besides, they're all ripped--how big can they be? The Duke Nukem shotgun can't possibly be 1-2 megs of space. It's pixelated to hell.
  
  Sorry there is no screenshots, the game crashed.
  PS: IDFA does work, even though it says it doesn't, and it has nothing to do with the crash above, that was independent of me "cheating".
  PPS: RIP to your dad author, if you read this.
  
  
• Journey To Hell Demo - Isaac Rodriguez
  Eternity/Legacy/ZDoom - Solo Play - 962078 bytes -
  Reviewed by: Krispavera
  A mega-hard (for me at least), 6 map wad for Doom 2. Though the first couple maps didn't thrash me too hard, some later sections absolutely destroyed me. But this isn't a bad thing! The level design is pretty sleek, trading extreme detail for clean, fluent, colorful rooms which are still very appealing to look at. Ammo is tight throughout, but not absolutely barren as I always seemed to have just enough to accomplish the task. Each level is literally packed with monsters, which in some cases I actually found to be unnecessary, but was mostly pulled off very well and put up quite a challenge. The maps are as follows:
  
  Map01: Quick starting map with lots of teleporting enemies.
  
  Map02: Bigger than the first map, but same visual style. Has a couple outdoor areas, and one large room crammed with enemies.
  
  Map03: My least favorite of the 6, but still pretty good. More cavern-like than the last two, and features quite a few arch-viles and at least two cyberdemons. Some areas seemed a little bit too crammed with enemies, and they seemed to bunch up quite a bit.
  
  Map04: A straight up slaughter map, featuring more monsters than you can shake a stick at. Main attraction is the giant green room where loads of enemies will spawn! I got killed here quite a few times.
  
  Map05: Back to the visual style of the first two maps, only this time featuring more monsters! There's also a neat checkerboard room, not much else to say.
  
  Map06: A huge, colorful tech/hell style map where every room is JAM-PACKED with baddies. Hallways are literally filled with revenants, barons of hell, imps, etc. Cool way to finish off the wad, though honestly, it was a bit ridiculous for me!
  
  I definitely enjoyed this pack, even if some sections were way over my head in difficulty (I guess I can always turn it down). Definitely worth checking out if you haven't already. Looking forward to the full thing!
  
  
• iPhone Wolf3D Source - id Software
  n/a - n/a - 10502484 bytes
  Reviewed by: JacKThERiPPeR
  I guess you all know the news. Well, good news: John Carmack released the source code of IWolf. Nothing more to say.
  
  
• Alternate late game music replacement - Mr. Chris
  doom2.exe - n/a - 363579 bytes
  Reviewed by: WildWeasel
  This small file (363 KB) replaces the music for Doom 2's last ten maps (not including Icon of Sin) with more tense music from Ultima VIII: Pagan. A lot of the Ultima songs actually fit Doom 2's hell maps pretty well, though I did find myself a little disappointed that Icon of Sin wasn't replaced. These are in MUS format, meaning they should work in Vanilla, and ZDoom will play them through the OPL emulator.
  
  Do I like it better than Doom 2's music? Yeah, actually, I do. But quite frankly, I'm too lazy to load an extra WAD for that, since I usually play Doom with -nomusic and a copy of Foobar2000 running in the background. For everybody else, though, this might be worth keeping in autoload.
  
  
• Rock It! - Mr. Chris
  doom2.exe - n/a - 370687 bytes
  Reviewed by: hardcore_gamer
  Here we have a WAD that replaces all of the MIDI songs from both The Ultimate Doom and Doom 2. There are almost 60 tracks (I think) and it took me a while to get through all of them. When I downloaded this I assumed the quality of the MIDI songs would range from average to kind of good. But then it turns out that this MIDI WAD actually has a good number of pretty good and sometimes even great MIDI tracks. All of the MIDI tracks are rock and metal tracks, and while most of them sound the same there are a number of very good tracks. If you make maps and you want a good collection of rock/metal MIDI tracks to use in them then there are plenty of good MIDIs in this WAD that you could use.
  
  Overall, I can easily recommend this WAD for anyone looking for a collection of good rock/metal MIDI tracks. It's also nice to see a music WAD that actually has a good number of nice tracks for once.
  
  
• Cat And Mouse - Captain Toenail
  Skulltag - Team LMS - 907916 bytes -
  Reviewed by: Wills
  A "monsters vs. humans" gameplay mode that pits Cyberdemons against Marines. It's entertaining but has a few bugs (the Cyberdemon shoots rockets out of his crotch, keeps walking forward even after he wins). The maps consist of Cat and Mouse from Doom 64, two new maps (nothing to write home about), and a couple of reworked (and pretty awful) classic Doom maps. If you like this kind of stuff give it a go.
  
  
• Satanic - M@@@H!aK, Guest
  GZDoom - Solo Play - 3342281 bytes -
  Reviewed by: Kirby
  It's not often I come across mod that both catches my interest and shows me a neat display of tricks. Satanic happens to be one of those mods that, while appearing to be crude and unplayable at first, is actually an unpolished gem.
  
  Satanic is a Doom mod similar in the sense of a weapon/monster replacement mod; it gives a whole new arsenal, replaces a good majority of the monsters, and has a new set of items to replace the original Doom ones. In Satanic, you are supposed to be a necromancer with a small arsenal of spells at your disposal that can be used in various ways against your opponents.
  
  Getting into the mod is a bit difficult at first (if you have ever played S.T.A.L.K.E.R. it's a similar difficulty experience). Zombies have boosted damage and the replaced monsters are tougher than the originals, making it fairly easy to die quickly.
  
  Initially the spells you have are confusing. There are two that replace the fist and chainsaw in the 1st slot using sprites from Heretic and Hexen. The first spell throws out small blood spatters that work as a melee attack on most enemies, and if you kill them with it you gain some life points. If you throw the spatters on dead enemy corpses, you get to watch as the body is lifted and burned, converting their dead mass into mana for you to use with your spells. The secondary attack spits out a bloody projectile that can do serious damage to your opponents; however, once it hits a wall/floor/ceiling it will bounce back and try to hit you with the same damage (usually killing you if you are not quick to dodge).
  
  The second spell I had a lot more fun with. It only has one primary attack, but what it does is it allows you to jump into the body of another creature and control them for 2 minutes. Not every monster is controllable, but the Afrits and Imps you find in this mod most definitely are, and it can be a great help to use an enemy to attack while sparing yourself precious health (there are no health pickups available anywhere). The only downsides to this is 1) Your original body is left unguarded and can still be attacked/killed, and 2) The monsters' weapon sprites are not aligned properly with the HUD, making it look a bit odd.
  
  Overall, I had some good fun with this wad. Some of the annoying bits include the completely grayscaled Doom palette, making everything look gray and red, which can get a bit annoying on the eyes. Not everything works properly, and a few things need fixing, but I think this a relatively unpolished gem. If Guest and M@@@H!ak are open to taking suggestions and work out the bugs in the future, this could be a really fun wad to play.
  
  
• Tiny Pack 1: Tiny Chances of Survival - James "Phobus" Cresswell
  ZDoom - Solo Play - 298802 bytes -
  Reviewed by: udderdude
  This is a short series of 5 maps for ZDoom. The maps are very small, dark, and cramped, with an emphasis on fights in tight spaces and ammo conservation. You're pretty much given exactly what you need to finish each map, and no more. My biggest issue is despite the map clearly being a ZDoom map, your weapons and ammo aren't removed from the start of each map, and it seems pretty clear that was the intent of the author. Really should have just used an ACS script to clear the player's weapons and ammo. Aside from that, this is a well-designed mapset, despite its short length.
  
  
• Bad Guns [requires Beautiful Doom] - Jekyll Grim Payne aka zer0
  GZDoom - Solo Play - 4410212 bytes -
  Reviewed by: WildWeasel
  Jekyll Grim Payne seems to be getting a little on some peoples' nerves lately with how many times he's submitted updates of Beautiful Doom to the archives. I don't really see the big deal with that mod myself, but this time around it almost seems like he's trying to draw attention to his older mod by making this new mod require it to run.
  
  Bad Guns is a GZDoom weapon replacement patch that adds reloading and a generally more tactical feel to Doom. And by "tactical" I mean "one wrong weapon selection and your GZDoom is going to freeze". That's the very first thing I noticed about this mod, and when that's the first thing that happens, it does not bode well for the rest of the mod. Bear in mind I'm testing this in GZDoom 1.2.1, as of this writing the most recent official release. I think Payne's got some runaway loop fixing to take care of.
  
  Once I managed to get the mod to play without freezing on me and memorized what exactly causes the freeze (selecting the regular pistol when the burst fire pistol is selected), I actually found myself playing a relatively enjoyable mod. The sounds - mostly HL2 and recycled Beautiful Doom resources - actually fit their respective weapons pretty well, and the weapon graphics, while using mostly familiar sources from other mods like Stranger and Immoral Conduct, are actually EDITED instead of simply reusing the exact same resources over and over. My one complaint, though, is one that I feel I shouldn't have to toss at a mod like this: inconsistent hands. Why does Doomguy take his gloves off for melee attacks? Surely he shouldn't need to do that? It makes it look really out of place.
  
  Aside from the nitpicks, though, this mod is worth your time. Or at least I would be saying that if it wasn't for that unfortunate freeze-up regarding the pistol. If that could be fixed, this would be a recommended mod.
  
  
• Demonic Libido - Pavera
  doom2.exe - Solo Play - 426249 bytes -
  Reviewed by: udderdude
  You would think from this map's name that it would be an impse-related jokewad. Thankfully, that isn't the case, and there is no demonic libido on display. It's a medium-sized techbase map for Doom 2. Nothing really new here, just a bog-standard tech base with a short hell area tacked on at the end. Average architecture and detail. The gameplay is a little rough in spots but overall not that bad. Most of the time I lost health, it was from a trap full of hitscanners opening up right next to me, while I had nowhere to hide. This map is full of those. Be wary.